


Guitar Strings

by angel1876



Category: Don't Starve (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Survival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-28
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-09-01 15:12:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 11,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16767631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angel1876/pseuds/angel1876
Summary: Wilson's spent two years of his life, stranded and alone on an island that felt like it'd been tailor made as his own personal hell.He'd learned to take care of himself. He'd learned to survive without anyone else.Things changed.





	1. This is a Creative Name

The sun was starting to creep low on the horizon. While it wasn't quite time for darkness to fall just yet, it was late enough in the day that the wildlife was starting to wind down, drained from every long hour that'd already passed. Soon the nocturnal animals would start to stir, creep out of their hiding places to stalk the night for whomever or whatever unfortunate soul that might wander blindly into their path. 

Predators of the night, while more than enough of a threat during travel, didn't warrent a second thought on this particular evening. With the exception of hounds, most anything that posed a threat kept to their own areas. Territorial buggers, easy to avoid if you know where they are, and very hard to bump into when one kept themselves secluded to their base after dark. That wasn't to say that there weren't certain benefits to nighttime travel. Dangerous as it was, there were things he could obtain while the sun was down that he couldn't find while it was up. 

It was easier to get a spider on its own, for example, rather than be forced to face the entire nest. Various mushrooms, insects, flowers that only bloomed by moonlight. Not to mention the fact that with the daytime creatures asleep, it was possible to circumvent obstacles that were quite a bit trickier than when they were alert and ready for a fight. Honey was a good one, and was better harvested during a time when he wasn't at risk for being stung by angry bees that were far bigger and more intimidating than they had any right to be. 

Right at the moment, the dangers of the island at night meant little. Wilson was at the campsite he'd built for himself, with little intention of leaving. So long as he kept the fire lit and kept an ear out for howling, he needn't worry about anything threatening his survival.

Ordinarily, this would have meant a few moments of peace. A chance to rest, rare as it was. Keeping himself alive meant that he was in a near constant rush to find supplies, which in turn meant that he was forced to keep on the move both day and night. Trouble was, it wasn't a surplus that had drawn him to the standstill he'd found himself in.

Wilson...had a guest with him.

It'd started out a normal enough day. He'd been low on wood, and so went out to chop down trees in one of the nearby forest areas. Three hours into it, covered with sweat and in need of a break, he'd gone to the river nearby for a drink of water. It was there, by a field of rabbits, he'd found someone. A child. 

His first instinct had been caution. Distrust of anything new, thanks to Maxwell's affinity for torturing him with beasts he'd not yet learned to fear. The next thing he'd felt, and on any other day this would have came back to bite him, was a mix of sympathy and horror. 

The girl was young. Mid-teens, at the latest. She had a small frame, to the point she almost looked frail, and not at all built for the environment she'd found herself in. 

...he'd once been the same way. A delicate twig of a man. He had muscle, now, his body shaped to be stronger and more athletic, adapted into something that didn't at all look like the person he'd been when he arrived. It had been awful. It was still awful. Every inch of him was covered in scars from each painful lesson he'd learned along the way.

And this girl was just a child. She should be going to school, playing games, expanding her knowledge, not trapped here in this prison fighting for her life. Wilson already hated Maxwell for everything he'd done to him, for everything he'd taken, but never had he been driven to feel such utter disgust. It was one thing to put an adult at risk. It was another matter entirely when it came to children.

When faced with two possibilities, either this girl was a threat and should be avoided, or she was just as she appeared and needed help, he was more willing to risk the former than the later. If he was wrong to try to help her and she was a threat, well...worst thing that could happen is that he'd die. Not the first time it'd happened to him, granted, but still something he deeply wanted to avoid. On the other hand, if he was wrong about her being dangerous and she actually did need someone, then it would be her who paid the price for his cowardice. 

So he'd approached, and lo, she was indeed what she looked to be. 

She'd not reacted much to his presence, one way or the other. He saw neither relief or fear. In fact, the girl seemed quite apathetic, both to him and to the situation she was in. Shock, perhaps. This, coupled with a lack of wound or scar and the fact that she didn't appear to be close to starving, told him that she'd not been there for very long. Not long enough for her to realize the full extent of her situation. 

The place he'd found her in had flowers. She was looping several of them into a garland. He'd introduced himself while she worked, and with some coaxing, she told him her name in turn. It was Wendy. 

Back at his camp now, he'd wasted no time in crafting a sleeping bag out of beefalo fur. Gave her a handful of berries, and then set to organizing his wood pile. Wendy stayed where he'd left her, sitting on the pile of cloth. Keeping an eye on her told him that she'd gone back to the garland once finishing her berries, and once her work was complete, she left the little flower crown in the grass to lay down on her side. He caught sight of a flower in her hair, notable in that it was unlike any species found on the island. Off hand, he would have said that it wasn't quite real. A plastic replica, going by the texture of each petal.

She held another just like it in the palms of her hands. Pointedly kept out of the garland. Kept by itself. Fingers listlessly shifting one of the petals back and fourth, in a way that suggested the motion was for self-comfort.

Wilson himself was quite torn, not entirely sure if it was space she needed, or if it was company. Worse still, if it was the latter, he was rather inexperienced in offering that company after two years alone. Not to mention the isolation he'd imposed on himself in the years before that. 

Unsure of what to do, but knowing he should do something, Wilson focused on the practical. He'd some beefalo meat still in storage, and while he'd been intent of saving it for the coming week, he wasn't the only one that needed to eat at the moment. His berry bushes were designed with a single person in mind, and were hardly enough to feed two. So he'd taken that meat, combined it with various vegetables and herbs, added some water, and put it all in a pot for a stew.

It took a while for it to cook. By the time it was ready, the sun had said its last farewell for the night, and disappeared over the horizon. Wilson threw a few logs into the firepit and burned the flame high enough that it'd last until morning. Legs crossed under him, he separated some of the stew into two wooden bowls(hers quite newer than his own, under the circumstances), and called her over to eat.

She came without a word, silently accepting the bowl from him. The flower she'd been playing with was set carefully at her side, kept close yet distanced enough that it was safe from any wayward drops of stew. An important trinket from home. He'd keep that in mind, and respect it as much as possible.

The distant glow of fireflies faded in and out of sight just beyond the campfire's light. He felt he should say something. It wasn't quiet by any means, between the chirping of crickets, the screeching of bats, the rustle of small creatures going about their lives in the branches above. Yet somehow, having another person nearby both present and utterly quiet, the lack of conversation made him feel like the silence was pressing in.

He should talk. He very much should talk. But he didn't know what he should say.

"...I noticed you like flowers." 

But breaking the silence, only to get a simple nod in return, only made it seem worse. 

He tried again. "What kind's that one?" Asked with a motion to her side.

"Carnation." She said.

"It's pretty."

"It's my sisters."

The little clip in her voice, and the fact that she moved the flower a little closer to her side, something that he couldn't imagine was anything but a defensive response, told him that talking wasn't the best course of action here, despite what he felt. 


	2. This is Also a Creative Name

The most important thing at the moment was food.

Unwilling to leave the girl unattended, Wilson roused her from her sleeping bag early in the morning and set off with a shovel in one arm and a backpack slung over the other. She trailed behind him, silent save for her footsteps, and despite himself he felt even more anxious than he had the night before. His nerves couldn't take holding his tongue, and compulsively, he found himself speaking more aloud than he'd ever had on his own.

Observations about birds, the species of that tree, the reason local butterflies preferred certain flowers over others.

He caught a section of long grass, and paused to tug it free from the ground. There was enough at camp, but he took a moment to show her the blades, took a moment to weave them together with a quick and practiced hand. 

"This," he said, "Is how you make a rope. And you can use rope to make all kinds of things. This shovel, for instance. See? Despite how utterly inhospitable this place is, it's still nature, And we can work with nature."

"...nature is boring." Her voice was flat. Eyes, though bright in color, were dull in tone. Gaze focused, if only half-heartedly, on him, with her thumb toying back and fourth over the petal's of her plastic flower. Her sister's, not the one sitting in her hair.

"Ah...I'd have to disagree. Nature is how we survive here. The more we know about our surroundings, the easier things will be. You're going to need to know these things."

She didn't respond to that. 

She didn't say a word. Just stared at him, until he was unnerved enough to move on his own. 

"W-well, then," he said, "Anyway. There are other uses for grass aside from rope. It makes for great kindling. Take this, some flint, some wood, and you can build your own fire. If nothing else, you'll need to be able to do that. The last thing you ever want is to be caught out at night without any light."

He put the rope in his bag, and started walking, easing back into his sadly one-sided conversation. 

"I found that out the hard way. There's a monster here, that comes in the dark. It's a terribly vicious thing. I think it follows me, sometimes. There's no other reason why it should show up after nightfall, without fail. It's a huge island, after all, and no creature is that fast. Then again, perhaps it uses teleportation..."

Like how he got there. 

Like how, presumably, she got there, too.

He glanced back at her. A very big part of him wanted to ask...what was it that Maxwell promised her? Did she arrive the same way he had? Was she made to build the portal?

Their destination was a good five miles away from camp. A scattering of berry bushes, not at all in one place but close enough together that visiting each one was easy. He started the slow process of first picking them clean, then uprooting the entire plants themselves, which were carefully placed in his backpack.   
  
"It's a simple matter to replant these." He kept talking while he worked. "They're hearty things, and can survive just as well as everything else here. The difficult part is getting them to grow their berries after moving them. They have to heal, and will conserve their nutrients by putting a stop to their flowering cycle. The only way to get them back on track is to fertilize them. There's a beefalo heard down by the curve of the river, a few miles off of where I found you. I don't have enough manure to work with at this point, so these guys are a ways off from helping us yet. Still, the only way to progress a thousand miles is to keep taking steps."

He glanced back, just to make sure she was still there. She was. She was watching him.

Well...

Pausing to wipe a bit of the sweat that was dripping down the side of his face, annoyingly tickling the skin there, he went back to methodically picking and uprooting the things. 

"We're in constant need of restocking. Keeping a light-source handy is essential. To that end, we're going to be eating through wood every night, and so we're going to need to keep the woodpile as stocked as possible. Food is next. Once the basics are met, the next step is invention. I am always on the lookout for materials to improve the camp. Ways to farm, luxuries like those sleeping bags, anything to make survival easier. If I can find a way to feed myself without going far, then I need to do so. This is why we're out here. Berries won't keep you going forever, but they'll keep you going until you find something that can."

A huff. He glanced back again. Wendy was keeping pace with him, which was good, but she seemed completely uncaring. 

"...I know it's a big change, from whatever life you're used to," he offered her in a tone of understanding. "But the more you learn now, the better off you'll be."

Still, nothing.

"I won't push if you don't want to talk about it...but I'm here to listen, if you do."

With nothing else to say, he let the subject drop, and went on to talking about the island they were on. Told her about the turkeys that came to steal berries at times, let her know of the importance in keeping the bushes separated into little clusters.

"If a fire catches, it'll spread to anything too close. I lost everything when I made my first camp. Lightening hit the far side of it and by the time the flames burnt themselves out, all I had left was my science machine and a firepit. I'd put a lot of work into that place, too. All the surrounding areas were picked clean of supplies, I had to start over again. That was in my first year..."

The exertion took its toll, and eventually, he fell silent. Draining himself of energy, at least the air around them didn't feel quite so stiff.

With a backpack full of both berries and bushes, he turned and motioned her to follow him back to camp.

The entire journey took the majority of the day, the sun starting to sink down by the time they'd returned. He threw some logs into the firepit, removed the berries from the backpack, and set to making a jam with them. He added both honey and herbs, the former for extra nutrients and the later for flavor.

Wendy laid down on her sleeping bag, curling up on her side with her flower. Resigning himself to another quiet night, Wilson kept to the same routine. He separated the supply into two separate bowls, and called her over to join him.

Tonight, though, she didn't move. He went to her instead.

When he knelt at her side to offer the meal, meager as it was, she curled up tighter and refused to budge. 

"...Maxwell lied to me."

The words startled him, but that jolt was soon overwhelmed by a wave of pity. "I'm sorry," he lowered the bowl to the ground. "He lied to me, too."

"I'm not hungry. I...just want to sleep."

"I understand."

He left the berry mixture close to her, in case she woke up later and wanted it, but for now he honored her request and leave her be.


	3. Wow, The Author Really Knows How To Name Things

It took time to get the new bushes situated. He planted them in easily accessible areas, and after a trip to the beefalos, set to getting each of them fertilized.

They looked good, settled into their new homes and would soon grant him berries for his hard work. 

The night's meal was a handful of carrots and mushrooms. He'd saved a few of those carrots and set up rabbit traps for the morning, but for now they had enough to get by. 

Right at the moment, he was fiddling with the science machine. Surrounded by rocks, sticks, wood, a jar of fireflies, and various hats, trying to invent new things. This process was mostly throwing different materials into the machine and seeing what came out.

Wendy was there, her bowl half empty, watching him.

"I'm hoping," he explained. "To find a way home using this. It's going to take time, a lot of experimentation, but science will prevail over this blasted island."

He dropped a hat and the jar of fireflies into the top, and out popped...a hat that lit up due to the power of fireflies.

"There, see! Look at this, it's perfect for night-time exploring." He put it on his head, felt the bones that supported his hair push up against the fabric bottom.

Wendy looked even more unimpressed than usual. "...it's a glue gun."

"It-what?" 

"The science machine. It's a glue gun. It just sticks things together."

"N-no! No, it's much more scientific than that!"

"Your fireflies are going to starve in there."

He stared at her, eyes narrowed against her blank gaze. Turning away, he opened up the top of the jar to free the little insects, tossing the now empty husk aside so he could gather more things together.

Waving her over, he said, "Come here."

Wendy came without complaint, her bowl left on the ground, her flower once more in her hand. Presumably she felt better with it. 

"Try it. Put something in there." Wilson motioned to all the supplies scattered about. She looked down at them. Sighed, and picked up a handful of burnt wood and a spare feather. 

A feather pen came out.

"There!" he said, "See? A glue gun couldn't do that!"

"We don't have paper to write on, or ink to write with."

"...fine. Do something else. Come on, science is about exploring and seeing what you find."

She put in some flint and a twig next. 

Out popped a machete. 

They both stared at the blade where it lay, decidedly sharp and still in the grass. Wilson looked at her, grinning. "The machine did not just glue that into existence."

"...it's a lot of blade." She says. Reaching down, she picked it up, turned it around to examine it. 

With little fanfare, she dropped it back to the ground and gathered a few more things. Threading them into the machine, an umbrella came out. Wilson opened it up and held it above his head.

"It'll keep our hair dry, at least," he said.

"For when the clouds weep."

Wilson frowned, more playful than scolding. There were two kinds of people...

Without prompting, she moved to gather more things. A knot inside him relaxed, relief that he'd managed to find something to draw out a response. Hopefully this would help her in some way, distract her from where she was. If nothing else, it was nice to see her interested in something.

A log suit came out next, which he promptly advised her to keep in case of an emergency. "It's armor. It'll protect you if something attacks."

And then she put in a plank of wood, a stick, and some silk. 

A guitar was produced. 

"...oh." Her response to the finding was quiet. So much so he was scarce sure he heard it.

Kneeling, he picked the instrument up, turned it over so as to grip the neck in one hand and bear the weight of it with his other.

"I always wanted to learn how to play something," he said. "I was more into pianos, but guitar's are nice, too. I just never really had the time. Or the patience."

Wilson picked the strings lightly, and they did indeed sound the way that a guitar was supposed to sound.

He went on, "I suppose I won't learn much of anything here, but it could be fun just to play the thing and see if I can make anything sound nice. Do you want to try?"

"No."

Startled by the sudden tension in her tone, he looked up to find that she wasn't looking at him. Her arms were crossed over her chest, her gaze off to the side. The fingers curled about her flower were shaking.

"Hey, are you alright?" His attention on the guitar quickly vanished, he put it down and refocused on her. "What's wrong?"

She shook her head, a strangled noise emitting from the back of her throat. 

"Wendy?"

But she didn't respond. He wasn't sure if she was able to, and for a moment he hovered just in front of her, uncertain. The distress was clear, and he didn't know what to do to make it better, didn't know what was wrong in the first place. Obviously, something must have hit a nerve. He glanced at the guitar.

Biting his lip, he came closer and put a hand on her shoulder. Wilson didn't know her well enough yet for a hug to be appropriate.

A shudder ran the length of her frame, the pained spasm of a sob, and then it didn't matter how well he knew her because she'd buried her face in his arm. He wrapped himself around her automatically, a hand pressing into her upper back with his head tucked over her own. His grip was nothing short of firm and protective, though there was nothing around that he should act as a physical barrier for. He could stand between her and a hound but there was little he could do about intangible threats aside from offer support that he wasn't socially aware enough to give in the first place.

Wilson spoke no words, just held her and let her cry, let her tears seep into his shirt.

The good thing about the process was that it helped the brain rid itself of a chemical buildup. In essence, her head was so full of whatever was hurting her that it responded by flushing it out, and while it might exhaust her of energy, she should feel better when it was over.

He...didn't like how small she felt. Not just in the way that she was a child, although that absolutely was a big part of it, but at how breakable she was on a practical level. She shouldn't be there. She was not built for this place. It was going to tear her apart in the same way it'd torn him apart before he'd learned how to survive, and she'd get it worse because she was smaller and younger than he was.

If he ever managed to get his hands on Maxwell, the man was going to die a painful death.

Even after she'd stopped crying, Wilson let Wendy disengage on her own time. More than willing to stay like this for as long as she needed, he stood with her in his arms for several minutes until she pulled away. 

Sluggish, tired, as he'd expected. She rubbed at her face with her sleeve, and then paused to check on her little plastic flower, gently smoothing out a wrinkle in one of its petals. With a sniff, she turned her attention from it to a spot behind him. At the guitar, still on the ground. She stepped around him and picked it up by the neck, fingers flexing briefly around it, her eyes kept away from his own.

In a quiet voice, she said, "I'm keeping this."

"Of course. It's yours."

"...thank you."


	4. Only a Genius Could Come Up With Chapter Names Like This

All of his rabbit traps had been sprung.

That was the best news of the day. Every one of those fallen boxes meant a good meal for both him and his charge. Of course, progress came at a price. What came next wasn't exactly his favorite activity. 

He took a breath, and glanced at Wendy, regarding her for long enough that her dull, blue eyes focused on him. Something felt familiar in her gaze, like an itch in the back of his mind, but there were more important things to think about at the present. He approached the closest box, and waved her closer. 

"I...need to show you this," he said.

He reached in and took the rabbit by the scruff to hold it down, tossing the trap off to the side. It squealed, legs kicking against the ground, its horns bucking uselessly against the air. Wilson lifted up his spear. 

"In order to make this as fast as possible, you need to hit something vital, and you need to hit it hard and without restraint. If you don't kill it in one blow, then it'll suffer." He indicated a spot just below its neck. "This is a good one, for example. If you get it right, it'll die quickly and you won't risk having it run off on you. It's...hard to watch, but you should get used to the idea sooner rather than later."

"...okay."

"I should have you practice, too..."

"Okay."

"But we can take it slowly if you want."

"It doesn't matter."

He looked at her, still holding the rabbit down. "Of course it matters. It could be...damaging, emotionally. Mentally. I don't want that."

"Lots of things happen that we don't want. It's no more than we deserve."

That, more than anything else, made him stiffen. He let the rabbit go.

It ran off into the closest burrow, vanishing out of sight as fast as its little legs could carry it. Wendy watched it, passively. Voice flat, she said, "I thought you wanted to eat it."

Wilson stood, facing her fully, spear left on the ground as he approached. "You can't believe we deserve this?"

More a question than a statement, and he tried to keep the strain from his voice.

Wendy seemed apathetic to it. She shrugged, looking up at him. "Good people don't end up here."

Her words hung in the air. A moment of silence. 

"You're wrong," he said. He put a hand on each of her shoulders. "There is nothing...nothing, that either you or I could have done to warrent being here. This isn't a punishment, this isn't something we deserve. This is because a man, for whatever reason, had the power and the malice to trap us for his own amusement. He's the one who isn't a good person."

"If we'd been better he wouldn't have been able to hurt us."

"No. That's wrong, and whoever told you that is wrong. Bad things happen. People can be cruel. Life itself can be cruel. It's still not your fault."

They stared at each other, very still, the sound of tiny claws against wood faint in the background.

Slowly, he let go of her.

"I think...maybe, we should wait on teaching you how to kill rabbits. Save that for another day. Can you wait for me over there?" He gestured to a grouping of trees on the far side of the borrow. 

Wilson really didn't think she should be watching, so he wanted to keep her as far away as possible without actually losing sight of her.

She went without complaint.

When every trap had been emptied and his bag filled with rabbit meat, he collected her and led her back to camp.

It was the first time since he'd met her that he couldn't think of anything to say while they walked.


	5. The Chapter In Which The Author Recycles an Old Conversation From A Previous Work

The night was restless. Wilson tossed and turned, unable to find comfort despite the calm, quiet night.

Wendy slept on the other edge of the camp. Softly, the firepit crackled in the background, hissing and popping as it chewed through the wood. It wasn't until the night was half over that he managed to doze, and only that. He dozed, his mind wandering, not truly asleep.

His mind wandered, images of the previous hours creeping in on him.

Good people don't end up here, she'd said. 

Maxwell himself didn't show up often. He sent danger, he sent beasts with claws and fangs, he sent horrible storms and monsters made of shadow...but he rarely appeared himself. When he did, it was always at his worst, and always with words designed to pierce him where it hurt.

Wilson last saw him months ago, in winter. Half starved, desperately clinging to both heat stone and torch as he searched for something to eat. 

He appeared beside him, cigar in hand, surrounded by sickly sweet smoke. Wilson would have speared him, if it would've done him any good. 

In the quiet dark, with a tone as casual as if speaking about the weather, he'd asked...

"Do you think you're in Hell, Higgsbury?"

The chill that went through him wasn't just from the cold. Before he could think to respond, the man kept going.

"And not in the figurative sense. In the literal one. The Hell your mother told you about when she realized how much faith you put in science."

"N-no. I-I-I don't." His words were as firm as he could have made them while struggling with chattering teeth. 

"They say that if you're fed the same lie for long enough, you start to believe it. And you were with them for half your life."

"T-they were wrong."

There was amusement in the tall man's voice, the words rolling out into the air between them. "I know when you're lying."

"If I-I'm in H-Hell, then I suppose...I s-suppose that makes you the Devil." Wilson hissed, turning to glare at him. "A-a-and I r-refuse...to believe, that you're anything but a...but a h-horrible man on a power trip."

Maxwell laughed at that. Laughed, and eyed him the way a great cat eyes a tiny mouse. Teeth parted, more a gash in his face than a smile, and in that moment Wilson wasn't entirely sure if his defiance was bravery or foolishness.

A cold, biting wind cut through his clothes and seeped down deep into his skin, enveloping him as if he were encased within Maxwell's stone heart.

"Tell me, Higgsbury, what difference between the two do you see?"

Then he was gone, and Wilson was left in the ice and the dark, the reminder of his childhood torn raw like the reopening of a scar.

Wilson jolted awake, the voice clear in his head as if spoken aloud, arms wrapped tight around the fabric of his sleeping bag as if it could offer him any protection.

'Do you think you're in Hell, Higgsbury?' Maxwell had asked.

'Good people don't end up here.'

Shivering from cold despite the heat, Wilson pulled himself out of bed and moved toward the fire, keeping close enough to it that he could feel the heat washing over his face. Close enough that he couldn't bear coming closer.

He glanced at the little girl, sound asleep, with her cold eyes and her flat voice and her flowers. Asleep with her guitar resting just next to her, so sure that she deserved to be there in that horrible place with him.

And it wasn't fair. It wasn't right. 

Wilson sighed, and looked back toward the fire. Warmth and heat. It was still summer, the world full of wildlife and sunlight, of opportunities to fortify his camp for the winter to come.

He curled in on himself, and sat where he was. He would get no sleep that night. 


	6. This Chapter Has The Best Name Yet

Collecting wood was easy enough. Granted, it was a grueling physical activity that took both time and energy, but at least he didn't have to lead them out miles on end to find trees to chop.

He did lead them out a little way, though. Just in case. 

Wilson gathered the pine-cones that fell as he worked, intending to plant more trees in the wake of the dead ones. Wendy, dressed in her log suit with her machete hooked to her side, stood a few feet away where he could watch her.

"Once," he said, rolling his shoulders to work out some of the stiffness. "While I was chopping for wood, one of the trees came to life and started chasing me. It's out there now, still. Last thing I want is to have one of them show up at camp."

"...you could set it on fire."

"And burn the entire forest down? There wouldn't be any wood left."

Wendy made a non-commental noise. 

For a while, the only sound afterward was chopping. It was less because he wasn't in the mood to talk, Wilson did feel better than he had the day before(if a bit foggy due to lack of sleep), and more because he couldn't muster the energy to chat while swinging the axe.

Given that he wasn't saying anything, he expected the day to be quiet, since he wasn't accustomed to Wendy starting things herself.

Yet...

"You don't think we deserve to be here?" she asked. He paused, not entirely welcoming the return to the subject, but answered her nevertheless.

"No. I don't. Maxwell is the one to blame, not us."

Wendy paused, just for the span of a breath. "...my sister would've said the same."

Wilson's attention turned fully to her. "Yeah?"

She looked away, her arms crossing over herself. "She was always...optimistic. She'd have liked you."

"Maybe you can introduce us. Once we find a way home."

"...no."

Here, she brushed one hand over the flower cupped in her palm. Keeping it close. Keeping it safe. There was a finality in both that one word and in her stance that told him what must have happened without need for explanation.

"I'm sorry," he said.

Wendy swallowed hard enough for him to hear. "People always say they're sorry. It doesn't make it better."

"No, it it doesn't."

He didn't know what else to say. Wilson fidgeted with the axe, looking from her to his half chopped tree. There was nothing he could do to fix it...but it felt wrong to just go back to his work. He thought about offering her a hug, but then she was moving away from him, kneeling down by a plot of tall grass. 

Without a word, she cut it off near the ground with her knife, and stood, methodically weaving the individual strands together into a rope. Just like he'd shown her. Poking around, she grabbed a sharp bit of rock, and strong looking stick, and with them she made herself her own axe. 

"...I'm impressed," he offered. He'd underestimated how much she'd actually been listening to him.

She said nothing, and took a spot by a tree just next to his own. Holding the handle in both hands, she raised the tool and hit the trunk in front of her as hard as she could.

Again, and again, and again, chipping away at the thing. 

Her arms were going to hurt later. He'd wait until nightfall and harvest some honey from his beehives for it. Turning back to his own tree, he paced himself, and started chopping anew.


	7. Bells Chime Out This Chapter's Name At The End Of The Universe

Days crept by, and Wendy kept helping him with gathering supplies. 

The wood pile was towering, there were rocks and flit aplenty, tufts of grass and twigs. They'd gone out and he showed her how to shave fur off of the beefalo, and told her what signs to look out for to signal that they were in heat and thus aggressive.

"We're almost out of silk, and completely out of venom sacks." He offered her a bowl of rabbit stew and sat down by her side with his own. "I...really should go hunting for spiders, but I don't think you should go with me. It's not safe."

She shrugged.

He wasn't much happier with that idea, though. Wilson didn't like leaving her alone any more than he liked the thought of taking her with him. The camp was safe, but there were too many things that could go wrong if he wasn't there to watch her. 

Of course, there were too many things that could go wrong if he took her with him to fight giant four legged beasts with deadly fangs and creepy eyes.

He clicked his tongue, and took a bite of his food. It'd be nice if there was bread. He'd find a way to make some, but there wasn't any wheat on the island, so alas.

They ate in silence. Wilson pondered the choice ahead of him. She already had armor and weapon...though the machete was too close combat for his tastes. He could make her a spear, bring her along and just tell her to stay back. 

A chill coiled inside of him. Did it really matter which way he went? Maxwell was probably waiting for the chance to hurt them, something was bound to happen no matter what. In that case, it'd be better to take her with him. At the very least she'd be within eyesight, and he'd be able to intervene if things went downhill.

She put her bowl down when she was halfway done, setting it to one side of her. The flower, ever in her hand, was placed on the side opposite, and she reached over to grab the guitar she'd made.

Wendy positioned it in her lap, fingers pressing into the strings at the neck of it while her other hand plucked at them. She played a few chords, made adjustments to the knobs at the top. Went from one string to the other, testing, and then played another set of chords.

He watched her, smiling at the sound and glad for the distraction. "It's pretty."

She strummed a few more times, and then the sounds shifted into something melodic. A song, though one that he didn't know. He closed his eyes to listen, wondering distantly what the words to it were, if there were any.

After a time, the melody changed, shifting to another song, then another. The last one seemed familiar, a nagging feeling, but one that he couldn't for the life of him recognize.

The last note wavered into silence. He opened his eyes to look at her, tried to make his voice sound as warm as he felt.

"That was beautiful."

"...thank you."

She sighed, stretched, readjusted her hands. After a thoughtful pause, she played something new.

This one he could name. It was a Christmas carol, _Hark the Harold Angels Sing._

"That one's my mother's favorite," he told her.

"My sister's, too." 

She never called her sister by her name, he noted. A part of him wanted to ask, but he was afraid doing so might hurt. 

The music faded halfway through a verse. "I always liked _Sleigh Ride_. Dad couldn't stand it since it was my uncle's favorite."

"What happened with your uncle?"

"He went missing."

"Ah..."

This poor girl's family went through some hard times. He felt for her, glancing away, toward the fire. "Your...parents must be worried."

"...no."

He looked back at her. Took in her eyes, glazed and far away, directed toward the grass. 

Her parents, too?

"What happened?"

Her answer was a voiceless murmur, quiet. "Bad things."

Things, judging by her answer, that she didn't want to talk about. He ran his tongue over the front of his teeth, clearing gristle of rabbit off of them. Fingers flexed around his bowl. Maxwell tricked him with the promise of forbidden knowledge. New scientific discovery, things he'd not seen before, exploration. He'd given him the blueprints for the portal, and stole him away from his cabin.

It seemed...Wendy might have asked for something far more sympathetic than what was promised him. Something that, like Wilson's own exchange, had been nothing more than a lie offered to seal his fate.

She plucked at the strings, played a different melody, another one he couldn't recognize.

"Happy music is so tiring," she said. "It isn't the same anymore."

A chilled air to the music now. Slower, eerie, a frigid pace.

Her voice raised, a little firmer, talking over the musical accompaniment. " _'Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend.' I shrieked, upstarting. 'Get thee back into the tempest, and the night's plutonian shore. Leave no black plume as a token of the lie thy soul hath spoken. Leave my loneliness unbroken, quit the bust above my door. Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door.'_ "

" _Quoth the raven,_ " Wilson said, quiet.

Wendy's volume lowered to match his. " _Nevermore._ "

It was personal. It felt personal. And when she turned her attention to him and said, "I memorized the entire thing," he felt an ache for her loss.

"That's no small feat. It's a long poem." He tried to smile for her.

"Do you want to hear it?"

"...I'd be honored."


	8. Will The Author Stop With Naming The Chapters Like This...?

Wilson wasn't sure what woke him.

His eyes snapped open, his body jolting with a start, dizzy with the sudden flood of information coming to assault his senses. Sitting up and looking around before he was awake enough to understand what it was he was seeing, the world came into sharp, painful clarity as several things clicked into place at once.

The fire was low. Wendy was asleep nearby. There was a bird pecking and seed a dozen feet away. The sun was rising.

It was still dark, the world cast in dull grays and shadows, but it was bright enough to keep the monster at bay even without a source of light.

His teeth clicked together, he pulled out his spear and stood to his full height, eyes scanning the area. The camp was mostly safe, he could trust, for the most part, that the camp was safe, but waking up out of a sound sleep like this was a threat that he couldn't leave to chance. 

Maybe it'd just been a dream. Maybe not. He listened, straining his ears until the silence felt like a solid thing, pressing in on him. 

In the darkness, something howled. 

Processed, understanding, and then he was at Wendy's side, hand on her shoulder and voice sharp with urgency. "Come on, get up. Wake up, the hounds are coming."

He'd told her about them. She knew what they were, but knowing about something and actually facing it were two different things. Wilson helped her to her feet, told her to get her log suit on, shoved her machete into her hands and then thought better of it. He should have made her a spear already.

Turning, grabbing the supplies needed out of one of the chests, he hurriedly put one together while giving instruction. 

"If you climb a tree, they'll tear it apart. The best thing you can do is keep your back to one so they can't get you from behind. I'm going to place tooth traps around you, with any luck, they'll focus on me. I can deal with them."

Pulling her over to the tree in question, he took that machete and tossed it to the side, replacing it with the new spear.

"If anything tries to get at you, stick it with the sharp end."

"...I gathered that," she responded dully. Her fingers tightened around the wood, and her eyes glanced away from his.

Dragging his traps out, he set them about her, creating a barrier between her and them. Grabbing his own spear, he pulled on a set of armor and braced himself, holding stiff, listening.

More howling. They were closer. Almost upon them. 

The hounds were of the canine family, but most certainly weren't part of any species found on Earth. They were massive beasts, tall enough to meet his shoulders and look him in the eye where they stood. Their eyes were mirrored for night-time vision, giving them a brilliant amber glow that made every hair on his body stiffen up. Shaggy fur as black as midnight, and great bear-paws supporting their weight. The worst of it, though, was their head. Rectangular muzzles forming out of a huge skull, lips that parted in a mouthful of fangs that would put many a predator to shame. A good quarter of their body-weight lay in their gaping maw and rows of teeth, any bite that landed from those monstrous mouths was sure to hurt.

There were five of them. 

Teeth clenching, Wilson gripped his spear until his knuckles ached, and threw himself into the fray before they could come to him. He knew how to fight these things by now, he knew that nothing less than his all would cost him.

The key was to aim for the eyes.

With a yelp and a spray of blood, the first one went down, while another reared up and planted its paws in his back. Shoving forward, forcing him to his belly with the brute strength of its weight. Before it could grab onto the back of his neck, he rolled and plunged the spear upward, impaling it as it came down on him. 

Heat poured out against his skin, he shoved the thing off and dragged himself upward, turning to face the remaining three.

A cry of pain, the heavy falling of a body as one of his tooth traps went off. One of them had gone for Wendy, and now lay dead at her feet. Only two left, then.

They stared him down, snarling from deep in their chests, and when they came it was as one.

Teeth snapped for him, only for his spear to plunge, burying itself into the roof of the creature's mouth. A terrible sensation of rock against bone, sliding toward the throat, momentum carrying the poor thing forward until his weapon cut through the back of its neck and through the spine. He stood, side-stepping the body, and though he was on his feet he was quite helpless to free his spear in time. The remaining wolf got him by the shoulder, biting down hard, shaking him with such ferocity that the world spun. The pain shot through him to his core and radiated outward, a distress call of severed muscle and torn flesh.

It threw him like a ragdoll, the ground coming up hard against his side. With his left arm quite useless and his weapon gone, Wilson scrambled onto shaking knees and stared up at the beast in terror.

In the corner of his eye, he saw Wendy's machete, laying where he'd tossed it just a few feet away.

He grabbed the blade in his working hand, and waited for the hound to pounce. If he went for the throat, if he could kill it before it killed him...

Powerful, muscular pillars of leg bent down, coiling, the hound ready to spring for him, and then a spear descended, biting down deep into its side.

Wendy put all her weight into the blow, and her weapon hit its mark. The hound turned its great head, snapping toward her, and she recoiled, ripping the spear out at she went. Blood flowed freely and the hound went down, collapsing on its side where it twitched and spasmed in pain. 

"Wilson?"

Her voice was small, distant, so much quieter than the fierce ringing in his ears. 

Dropping the machete, he reached up to touch the mangled mess of his arm. Fingers shook, his words rang hollow. "In the chest...there's...a venom sack left."

No honey, they'd eaten it already, but...it should at least get the bleeding to stop. 

She turned and darted for the thing, the fastest he'd seen her do anything since the say they'd met. He heard her rummaging, looking through the chest.

Her flower was on the ground.

He saw it as it lay there, the sun just high enough that he could make out the bright red against the green grass. Their camp was scarlet, now, scarlet shadows against the flicker of their dying fire. Wilson sat there, eyes faintly squinting at the sense of movement. It was so subtle, so faint, he could scarce believe it was really there. It wouldn't have been the first time he'd seen something that didn't exist.

But no, it was blood. The blood of the hound Wendy killed. It was creeping its way through the grass, toward the plastic flower. Creeping toward it, and then disappearing, like water to a sponge. He watched it go, watched it happening from someplace far away from himself, dizzy and cold and in pain.

Wendy was back, and he took the venom sack from her, shoving the entire thing into his mouth and biting down. Swallowing the venom, horribly bitter-sweet and spitting the leather sack out.

An itch, deep in the wound, the feeling of flesh stitching itself together. Not enough to completely heal him, nor enough to replace the blood he'd lost, but it did stop the damage from progressing. He touched it again, distantly. No honey. That was the last sack. He should have gone after the spiders last night. 

Behind Wendy, the blood from the hound was gone. Every drop of it had vanished, drunk in by the flower. From within the folded petals, a mist poured out, gathering upwards into the air like a fog. It took shape, humanoid, a tiny form with frail limbs, ponytails, and eyes like an endless white abyss. 

A being that took Wendy's shape. It reached down, gathered up the flower, and placed it in it's hair. 

Wilson tried to warn her, but could only manage a groan, his hand grabbing urgently onto her wrist. Darkness crept in on the edges of his vision, and he felt the horrible weight of unconsciousness building up within his skull. He knew this feeling all too well, knew it from every other time a fight had knocked him out, but never had he gone down with a threat still standing right before him.

Wendy turned, following his gaze. 

The last thing he heard before the world was lost to him was her breathless gasp of, "Abigail?" 


	9. Probably Not

He awoke to the taste of spider venom in his mouth. The sun was high, the heat melting into his shivering skin, he reflexively reached for his shoulder to find shredded cloth and a knot of scar tissue. There was no pain, only exhaustion and dizziness. His groan was met with a fleshy sack against his mouth, more of the venom flowing in. 

Wilson swallowed, and pushed against the ground, sitting up. He held his face in his hands, breathing steadily through his mouth, a shudder down his back. His head. His head throbbed, a deep and penetrating ache that stretched from the base of his skull down into the back of his neck and into his shoulder-blades. The light above made it worse, but he couldn't rest yet, there was something important...

"Are you okay?"

Wendy's voice, soft as it was, clawed into his ears. He pulled a hand away from one eye to gaze at her, blond hair and blue-eyed and far, far too bright when backlit by the sun. She knelt beside him, a pile of chewed up venom sacks on one side and a pile of untouched ones on the other. Which was impossible, they didn't have any, he'd been planning on getting more.

And beyond her, he saw it. That faint, transparent image, so much fainter by daylight but nevertheless there, the foggy beast in Wendy's guise. 

"T-there's a...a..."

She didn't even look. Grabbing the hand he was trying to gesture with, she pushed it down, her voice even. "It's okay. It's Abigail."

"Abi..."

"My sister."

Alarm flooded through him, but his attempt to draw himself to his feet only led to his stumbling back to the ground as his head screamed its protest. Hands scraping his skull, all but blinded, his own cry of pain making it worse. He coiled his fingers around the bones in his hair, the joints creaking from the force. 

Even so, he spoke, trying to get the urgency of the matter through to her. "N-no, no it's not. I've seen them before, they...there's graveyards, Maxwell, he made it look like that on purpose, it's dangerous...!"

"She helped me get what was needed to heal your wounds. I know her. She isn't a lie."

"Ghosts aren't...ghosts aren't real. It's not, you have to-"

"She's not going anywhere."

"Wendy-!"

The ground against his back, a weight on him, and he looked up to find her glare, her hands at his shoulders. In her eyes, there was a dark ferocity, backed by bared teeth. Something in there froze him, kept him immobile, her words delivered with a sharpened edge. "My sister isn't going anywhere."

"Okay, okay." He turned his head, closed his eyes, recoiling from her. "She's not...going anywhere."

Only then did she let him up, but he only curled where he lay, clutching his head. 

A noise, a ghostly whisper, drew Wendy's attention away from him, and the figure pointed down toward the untouched venom sacks. Without a word, Wendy grabbed another one, tore it open, and pushed it in towards his face.

Two more, and the pain eased, the world came back into view, and he was able to pull himself up from the grass. He was on shaky feet, his arms trembling, but that was more from stress than from his injury. In the corners of his eyes, he could see shadows flicker, the suggestion of unknown beasts staring him down only to vanish when he tried to look. Right now, they mattered little. They would go away with time, if he let himself rest. 

His attention was on the form before them, the faded image standing several feet away, out of arms reach but still too close for his liking.

Wendy stepped between them. 

"She got all those sacks for you. If she wasn't true, she wouldn't have helped us."

Wilson steeled his voice to keep it from shaking. "We'll keep an eye on her."

"I'm not letting her get hurt."

"...we won't hurt her. Not unless she's threatens us."

"We're not hurting her even if she threatens us."

" _Wendy._ "

"I don't care."

He looked at her. Looked at her for a long moment.

And he knew that, if it came down to it, she would kill him for the sake of the figure behind her. 

The...ghost.

Still, he couldn't ignore that this 'Abigail' had helped them. Nor could he ignore the fact that she wasn't actively attacking. 

He couldn't accept, either, that Maxwell would ever be so kind as to reunite them, even if it were possible to bring back the dead.

Tearing his gaze away from them, he took in his surroundings, a frown tugging fully at his mouth. 

"The hounds made a mess of the place."

She followed his line of sight, toward the bodies laying limp around them. "Yes. We'll eat their carrion like vultures."

"It's a lot of meat. It'll go bad before we can make use of it all. I'll make some racks for it to dry on, jerky will keep longer."

He set to building said racks. Wendy took her machete and started relieving the nearest wolf of its flesh.

Abigail stood a ways away, keeping a good deal of distance from them both yet watching them without a sound.


	10. Behold, The Chapter Titles Can Actually Get Pretty Long. In Fact, They Can Get To a Total of Two Hundred and Fifty Five Characters. That's Longer Than One Entire Tweet. That's Amazing. See? The Title Name is Still Going. Wow. Just Look at How Long it is.

Abigail followed them, wherever they went.

She never came too close, though. In fact, if either of them drew near her, she'd move away. Wilson watched her every day, but not once did she pose anything remotely resembling a threat. Little by little, he started to relax. Even if she wasn't really who Wendy thought she was, she didn't seem to mean any harm, either. She...seemed to be just who she appeared. A small child.

Wendy kept trying to get close to the foggy creature, following her in a slow game of chase until finally she stopped and asked in a near helpless tone, "Did...I do something wrong? Why do you keep running away?"

Abigail shook her head.

Wilson could hazard a guess. He'd seen what similar beings from the graves could do. She turned from them, kneeling by a garden of flowers. With a simple brush of her hand against their petals, they withered, dead within seconds. 

Wendy didn't have anything to say to that.

Given the rather sizable pile of hound meat and the several spider silks and venom sacks they had at camp, those specific supplies were more than taken care of for a while. His next step was to get them back to collecting both wood and stone, and hopefully there'd be gold available at the mining site as well. He'd been working on a prototype for an Alchemy Engine and had everything available to him except for that precious metal.

Abigail didn't join them. Merely stood, and watched, and occasionally whispered. Soft, far away murmurs that crept in like the shadows just outside his vision. The things she said were unintelligible, but almost always were directed toward Wendy. Once or twice she'd look at him and say something, make a comment or venture a question with a tilt of her head. Wilson knew what that felt like, needing to form a connection to the point that whether the message was understood began to matter little.

He spoke himself, teaching her the same survival advice that he'd taught Wendy. Often leading into the things neither of them knew, showing them various methods that made survival not just possible, but even easier. While they were mining, he pointed out the tallbirds, explained that they were easy to avoid so long as one avoided their egg. Nasty things, too, with beaks sharper than any spear he could make.

About a week after Abigail's arrival, Wilson took some time to bring them back by the Beefalo herd to harvest fur.

Once back at camp, he took to the science machine with the fur, working it over for a few minutes while the twins kept an eye on the stew he'd started. When he was done, he called Abigail over, motioning her attention to him with a wave.

She approached as close as she ever did, her head tilted, her eyes those same, misty circles. Wilson cleared his throat.

"I...feel as if an apology is overdue. I regret my earlier suspicions of you, Miss Abby. Perhaps I've been on this island too long..."

Ghosts did not exist. The concept of them was offensive to him as a scientist. Offensive to him...due to his family. He glanced away from her, cleared his throat again. She was not a ghost, those things in the graveyards were not ghosts. Merely...beings of vapor, which Maxwell created specifically to hit that one nerve of his.

"Regardless of my reasoning," he went on. "I was hasty in judging you. Especially after you'd gone out of your way to help me. For that, I'm sorry. I understand it is little comfort, and you've no reason to forgive me this. Still...um. Due to your lack of contact with living things, I thought, perhaps..."

He held up the ball of fluff. 

A stuffed hound, made of beefalo fur. Complete with a little fur flower on one side of its head. Granted, on a practical level, beefalo were more docile and more friendly an image when in the context of the island, but hounds resembled dogs, which were much closer to the thought of a human companion than the massive horned beasts out in the fields. He'd made some aesthetic changes, omitted the teeth and made the eyes bigger and softer.

"There's one for Wendy, too. You can give it to her, if you'd like."

He indicated the hound's sister plush, a near perfect copy, but with the flower on the other side of its head. 

With a faint, far away wispy noise and a tremor in her shoulders, Abigail appeared to be laughing. She waved a dismissive hand, and smiled at him.

His error, it seemed, was forgiven. He smiled in return, and put both the blush hounds on the ground, and backed away from them so she could claim both.

Wilson took over the stew while Abigail drew Wendy off over to the other side of the camp. He watched the exchange, Abigail putting the second hound down and retreating, then motioning Wendy to go and pick it up. Wendy didn't respond for a moment, and indeed, she looked over to meet his eyes. It was brief. When she did move to pick up the plush, it was sluggish, but once she had it in her arms she clung tight to it, fingers digging into its fur.

She sat there, in the grass. Abigail moved to do the same, sitting where she stood, the distance between them twice as wide as either was tall. They sat, and hugged their hound plushes, and Abigail talked in her quiet, whispery voice.

Later that night, out of curiosity, Wilson suggested to her that maybe she could try writing something out on the ground. 

When she did, what made it into the dirt was similar to what came out of her mouth. Mysterious, unintelligible shapes. Something Wilson was increasingly sure was in another language. Without saying a word, he wrote on the ground, 'Can you read this?'

To which, she nodded. 

Able to understand, but unable to respond. Wilson bit at his index finger absently, thinking to himself.

Now, he didn't know the first part of sign language...but...it didn't have to be the same sign language that they had back on Earth. It'd just be between the three of them, for now.

For lack of speech and writing both, he suggested it to them, that they come up with their own sign language to communicate. 

It was decided that this was exactly what they were going to do.


	11. This is the Last Chapter. Wow.

Neither Wendy nor Abigail went anywhere without their plush hounds again.

Little by little, they worked together on forming a new sign language that the three of them could communicate with. It was a slow process, words were occasionally lost and needed to be remade again, but the more they did it the more they had to work with. It wasn't going to be long, Wilson thought, until they could hold conversations without vocalizing at all.

One particular night, when Wendy was feeling down and curled up in her sleeping bag, Abigail came close and picked up her guitar.

Sitting down a safe distance away, she plucked at the strings, testing them out as Wendy once had. Soon, a melody picked up, and Wendy pulled herself upright to listen.

Wilson set his alchemist project aside to shift his attention to them. A smile tugged the sides of his mouth as Wendy, too, smiled. Her gaze brightened for the first time since he'd met her, and as Abigail played, she started to sing along.

He closed his eyes and lost himself to the music.

When he opened his eyes again, he was in a pitch black forest. Torch in hand, the flickering crackle of its flame all that stood between him and the shadows beyond. Wilson nearly jumped out of his skin, and all around him he could see claw-like branches that seemed to reach out, ready to grab him. 

There were things in the dark, creatures that watched him, beasts that murmured to one another.

Wilson walked forward, picking his way through those horrible trees, knowing that he only had until the fire burnt out to find a way to safety. If he couldn't find another source of light, the thing that lived in the dark would find him. Perhaps, he thought for a panicked, wild moment, he should set the trees around him alight, to ensure that nothing could reach him.

He could hear music, then. Bright, bouncy, completely mismatched from his environment. 

It was _Sleigh Ride_ , and he felt like that should be important, but for the life of him he couldn't figure out why.

And then he saw the man. Maxwell's tall, towering figure, standing with his back to him. The sight and smell of smoke curled about him in a drifting haze. 

The man chuckled low in his throat, deep and barrotone. The rolling of far away thunder. "I always did like this song, Higgsbury. Although I wouldn't call this kind of weather lovely."

As if to back the spoken words, the cold made itself known to him. A shiver ran the length of his spine, and the earth crunched beneath his feet. Cruel, sharpened wind and a vision of snow, a snowy landscape in the dark, stretching for miles and miles, leaching the life out of any creature not suitably prepared.

Fear prickled at his core.

"Where's Wendy and Abigail?" he demanded, snarling at the man standing so casually before him.

"Where indeed?" Maxwell asked, drawing a long pull off of that blasted cigar. "You seem to be getting along well with them, aren't you pal? I never expected to catch you celebrating Christmas in the summer."

"Drop it, Maxwell. Just tell me what you want."

"Tell you what I want...?"

"I don't care what you do with me. Leave the kids alone. I'll do...I'll do whatever. They shouldn't even be here! Why would you bring them here?!"

Maxwell hummed, a non-commental noise without meaning, one that clawed at Wilson's last nerve.

"Damn it, Maxwell, tell me what you want me to do! I'll do whatever it takes to keep them safe...please."

"See, pal...that's a generous offer you have there. But there's a bit of a problem with it..."

"Like what?"

"I'm afraid that's a secret."

"Maxwell!"

"Okay, okay, pal. Since you're asking so nicely..."

At this, Maxwell turned. He turned, meeting his gaze, and Wilson felt himself stiffen under those dull, blue eyes. Cold, and distant, and regarding him without blinking. Familiar eyes.

His tormentor's voice a whisper, the whole forest still and silent so that the words felt like they encompassed all of existence.

"...I don't actually know what it is I want from you."

Those words ringing in his ears, and a hand on his shoulder bringing him back to the campfire. He blinked, startled by the heat of summer air, the green grass all around him, and the little girl with blue eyes looking back at him.

"You're going to have a stiff back if you sleep sitting up," she said. 

"R-right. Yes. Sorry, t-thank you. I suppose I haven't been sleeping as well as I should, as of late."

"Will our music keep you up?"

"No, goodness, no. Keep playing, if you would. It's nice to hear."

She smiled faintly. "Okay. Night, then."

Wendy left him to go back to that spot, close to Abigail but outside of arm's length. She hugged her hound plush, and sang along to the music her sister played. Wilson watched them, for a moment, before pulling himself away from his science area to lay down in his sleeping bag. There he lay, deep in thought as he listened to them.

There was...a great deal to think about.

But perhaps, that is a mystery for another time.


End file.
